e sovereign and
constitution of government, both professing and avowing their adherence
to the rights of British subjects; but differing from each other as to
the extent of those rights in contradistinction to the constitutional
rights of the Crown and those of the people--as in the case of party
discussions of all constitutional questions, whether in the colonies or
mother country for centuries past. Both parties had their advocates in
the British Parliament; and while the prerogative advocates supported
the corrupt Ministry of the day--or the King's party, as it was
called--the Opposition in Parliament supported the petitions and
remonstrances of those colonists who claimed a more popular colonial
government; but all the advocates of the constitutional rights of the
colonists, in both Houses of Parliament, disclaimed, on the part of
those whom they represented, the least idea of independence or
separation from England. The Declaration of Independence essentially
changed the relations of parties, both in Great Britain and America. The
party of independence--getting, after months of manipulation by its
leaders, first a majority of one in the Congress, and afterwards
increasing that majority by various means--repudiated their former
professed principles of connection with England; broke faith with the
great men and parties in England, both in and out of Parliament, who had
vindicated their rights and professions for more than ten years; broke
faith also with their numerous fellow-subjects in America who adhered to
the old faith, to the old flag, and connection with England, and who
were declared by resolutions of Conventions, from Congress, provinces,
counties, to townships and towns, enemies of their country, rebels and
traitors, and treated as such.[102] Even before the Declaration of
Independence, some of these popular meetings, called Conventions,
assumed the highest functions of legislation and government, and dealt
at pleasure with the rights, liberties, property, and even lives of
their Tory fellow citizens. There had been violent words, terms of
mutual reproach, as in all cases of hot political contests; but it was
for the advocates of independent liberty to deny to the adherents of the
old faith all liberty of speech or of opinion, except under penalties of
imprisonment or banishment, with confiscation of property. For a large
portion of the community[103] to be thus stript of their civil rights by
resolutions of